FALL/WINTER 2016 NEWSLETTER

ALUMNI SPOTLIGHT: David Washington

Thursday April 13, 2017

David Washington ’09 graduated summa cum laude from the University of Florida in 2009. He then served as a Youth Development Volunteer in the Peace Corps in Honduras, where he lived in a small town called San Juancito, situated high up in the mountains outside of Tegucigalpa. “Honduras is a place of great beauty, but also great suffering,” he observes of his time there.

FACULTY SPOTLIGHT: Andréa Ferreira

Thursday April 13, 2017

Andréa Ferreira is SPS’s newest faculty hire. She joins our department as a lecturer in Portuguese, in charge of teaching language and culture classes and developing courses for our soon-to-be-created Certificate in Portuguese for the Professions.

PROGRAM SPOTLIGHT: UF in Cuzco – Service Learning for the Health Professions

Thursday April 13, 2017

Last summer the Departments of Spanish and Portuguese Studies and Biology co-sponsored a six-week study abroad program in Cuzco, Peru. The 16 students who participated in the inaugural offering of the program took two courses taught by UF faculty:  “Spanish Service Learning” (SPN 3948 – Dr. Greg Moreland, of SPS) and “Emerging Disease in the Americas” (ZOO 4956 – Dr. Tom Hladish, of Biology).

STUDENT SPOTLIGHT: Valerie Jepson

Thursday April 13, 2017

IN MEMORIAM: Whitney Koonce

Thursday April 13, 2017

Whitney Koonce, who completed her MA in Hispanic Linguistics with us in 2015, was killed in a car accident in June of 2016. We were all saddened to learn of her tragic passing. Everyone who worked with her, students and faculty alike, remembers her infectious laughter, her seemingly permanent smile, and an enduring goodwill, regardless of the time of the semester or how difficult coursework got.